A Rude Awakening
Part One
By Lisa Brown
ERDrLewis@aol.com
A Carter story rated PG. It's a Carter/Lucy romance, but the story is about a family struggle involving Carter. In the beginning, it wasn't a C/L story, but I've switched it around a bit to make it one. I wrote this soon after the season five finale and way before any spoilers for the sixth season had come out. So no spoilers at all. ;) Thanks to Elizabeth for editing and pointing out all of my stupid mistakes way back when.
June, 2000
"I have signed off on Mr. Quaver's chart, he is my
last patient today, I am
out of here!" Carter exclaimed, dropping the chart into the pile. He sat
down at the desk and signed out on the computer.
"Bad night?" Jerry asked while he sorted through some papers.
"You wouldn't believe it," Carter answered getting up.
As Carter began to walk to the lounge, Jerry called out,
"Hey Carter, a
little bird told me that it was your birthday today."
"You had to remind me, eh?" Carter called back.
"Sorry! Happy birthday anyway," Jerry said, returning to sorting papers.
"Thanks," Carter replied walking into the
lounge. It was empty except for
one person. "I'm going to kill you," he said, walking over to his locker.
"I swear, I didn't tell a soul about your
birthday," Lucy replied as she
stirred her coffee.
"Then how'd Jerry know?"
"I don't know," she said. She sat down on the
couch and motioned for him to
sit down. "Come here."
He shut his locker and sat down on the couch facing her.
"Yes?" he asked,
pretending to be annoyed but failing miserably.
She smiled and reached for his hand.
"You look tired," Lucy commented.
"Well, the graveyard shift'll do that to you,"
he replied dryly. Carter
quickly apologized. "Sorry. I've had a bad night."
She frowned at him and gave him a look that said 'I'm sorry' all over it.
"Well, then you had better get home and get some
sleep. I'll be home this
afternoon. Hopefully I can make your day better," Lucy said with a sly grin.
Carter laughed a little bit. "I hope so," he
said getting up. He placed a
soft kiss on her cheek. "I'll see you at home, okay?" She just nodded and
smiled at him before he walked out the door.
"Bye everyone, see you tomorrow afternoon,"
Carter said as he walked by the
admit desk. There were a few scattered 'good-bye's and 'happy birthday's
from people Jerry must have just told. He waved back to them and walked out
of the ER.
As he walked to his car, he thought for a moment about his awful day.
Maggie had to go somewhere on personal business. Since he
was the nice guy
he is, he switched shifts with her. It didn't occur to him at the time that he
would be on for twenty hours in a row. She owed him. Big time. However,
as he got into his car, his thoughts drifted off Maggie and on to Lucy. She
said yesterday that she had a surprise for him this afternoon. He wondered
what that would be. He wasn't quite sure what it was, but he thought that
he had a general idea of what she had in mind. The other night he had found a
Victoria's Secret's receipt crumbled up by the bathroom wastebasket. He
guessed that would have something to do with it. He finally got home and
parked the car. Carter walked into the house and on the way to the bedroom,
quickly looked in a mirror. *Gosh, Carter, Lucy was right. You do look
like crap.* With that, he promptly stripped down to his boxers and flopped
into bed.
"Hey, you up?" Lucy said to Carter as she walked in the room.
"Yeah. How was your day at work?" Carter asked, sitting up.
"As wonderful as a day at work can be, I suppose. Did you have a good nap?"
"Yeah, I've been asleep since I got home,"
Carter said, glancing over at the
clock. "Wow, it's after three already?"
Lucy grinned and sat down next to him on the bed. "I
guess you did have a
good nap. You know, when I was at work today, someone told me it was
someone's birthday. Do you know who that would be?"
Carter smiled back. "Not a clue."
"Oh really? I heard it was a John T. Carter's birthday," she replied.
"Okay, okay, guilty as charged," Carter said. "Why?"
"Because there's a present in the kitchen with his
name on it. I was just
about to go get it -- Carter!" she squealed as he grabbed her waist and
pulled her closer.
"Yes?" he whispered before he softly kissed her lips.
"I'm assuming presents can wait, right?" she whispered back.
"Good assumption," he whispered before kissing her again.
"Oh, shit," she said.
"What?"
"God damnit!"
Carter sat up abruptly in bed. Just a dream. Damn.
"Lucy?" he said to
the figure bent down at the foot of the bed.
She popped her head up. "I'm sorry, I tried not to wake you," she said
apologetically.
He smiled at her. "It's okay. I've been asleep since
six-thirty this
morning. What happened?" he asked getting up to help her.
She smiled sheepishly. "I was trying to get some
clothes out of the drawer
to change into and I pulled it out too far, so the whole drawer fell out.
Now it won't go back in."
"Here, I'll get it," Carter said, reaching for
the drawer. After a few
moments, he had successfully put it back in. "Ta-da!"
"Thanks," Lucy replied. "So. What do you
want to do? It still is your
birthday you know."
"Lucy, we don't have to do anything for my birthday.
I would be perfectly
content if I didn't get out of bed all day," he said, sighing.
"Well, I know that," Lucy replied.
Carter looked at her and saw the twinkle in her eyes. He
chuckled for a
moment. He didn't even mean it that way. "Well, then what do you have in
mind?"
"Well, that bed does look enticing. I've been on my feet all day."
"We'll have to change that. But I must warn you, I
don't know if you'll be
getting much sleeping done," Carter said, reaching out for her hand to help
her up.
"That's fine with me," Lucy said. "Oh, by the way, your mother called.
Left a number of where she could be reached. Sounded kinda
urgent," she
said as she got on the bed.
Carter thought for a moment. How many of his urgent calls
had she returned
quickly over the years? He couldn't think of very many. "She can wait
awhile," he said, joining her on the bed. "I can think of more important
things to do."
"Like what?" Lucy asked.
"Spend time with you."
"Here's the number your mom left," Lucy said, handing it to him.
"Okay, I'm going to call her I guess. Lucy, you don't
have to make dinner,
we can order take out or something," Carter said, reading the piece of
paper. "She's in Chicago?"
"I know we could order take out, I want to cook
something. And yes, I
noticed the number she left was in Chicago," Lucy said, grabbing a pot from
the cupboard.
Carter walked over to the phone in the living room and
dialled the number.
When the hotel operator promptly asked where he could direct the call, he
replied, "Room 514, thanks."
After a few rings, a voice said, "Hello?"
"Hi, Mom," Carter replied.
"Oh, good, you got my message. How are you?"
"Fine. What are you doing in Chicago?"
"I'm here on business. Happy birthday dear."
"Thanks, Mom. Is that why you called?"
She paused for a minute and then said, "No, not the
only reason. Listen,
can we get together for lunch or something tomorrow? Or dinner tonight? I
wanted to talk to you about something."
"Well, I have plans for tonight and I'm on tomorrow,
but I can meet you for
dinner the next day if you're still around," Carter said. He wasn't on
until the afternoon tomorrow, but he and Lucy had planned on sleeping in
tomorrow. And Lucy was on until seven the day after that.
"Yes, I'll be here until the end of the week. I'll
come by your apartment
and pick you up. Does six sound okay?"
"Yep, fine, Mom. So, see you then?"
"That'll be great, dear. Have a nice birthday."
"Thanks, Mom. Talk to you later," he said, hanging up the phone.
"So, what did your mom have to say?" Lucy called from the kitchen.
"She wants to have dinner with me on Wednesday. She
said she wants to talk
to me about something," Carter said, walking towards the kitchen. "Is there
anything I can do?"
"No, I want our dinner to be edible, thank you. You
just sit there and look
pretty."
"How about I set the table?" Carter asked.
"Well, I suppose you could do that," Lucy said,
handing him some plates and
silverware. "So, what do you think your mom wants to talk about?"
"I don't know. We'll just have to wait and see."
Katherine Carter paced back and forth while she waited for
the valet to
bring around her car. She had prayed that she would never have to be telling her
son this and she hoped he would take it well. Finally, the green Jaguar
pulled up and she handed the young man a five. After hearing a "thank you"
from the valet, she pulled out onto the road and followed her scribbled
directions that her son had given her yesterday on the phone. As she drove,
she pondered the best way to tell him.
She pulled up to the right address and parked the car. After a quick knock
on the door, her son appeared.
"Hi, Mom," Carter said, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. "So, what's
this all about?" he asked with a puzzling look on his face.
She smiled at him. "We'll talk at the restaurant, okay? Come on."
"Okay. Hey, mom, no chauffeur today?" he joked seeing the car.
"Um, no, your grandparents don't know I'm here. So, I
just rented a car and
stayed at a hotel. Your father still thinks I'm in San Francisco on business."
As he climbed in the car, he was even more confused. "Mom, what's going on?"
"We'll talk later. So, how's my son, the doctor,
doing? Work treating you
okay?" she asked. She would have always known, even if it wasn't proven.
Always nice and kind. Compassionate. Like Roland when he was younger, but
even more so. In a different way.
"Um, work's great. Tiring, but I like it. How about you? Work okay?"
"Yep, fine, your father's fine. We saw Barbara back
in May, she's fine.
Asked about you."
"What did you say?"
"That you were fine, liked work, et cetera."
"Oh. So, San Francisco? What were you doing
there?" Carter asked. His
parents' work had never taken them there before.
"Oh, nothing. Just checking a few things out. First I
was in New York.
Ran into a friend's daughter. Well, I'll tell you all about it at dinner. So,
do you have a girlfriend yet?" she asked, changing the subject.
Wow, it had never occurred to him to tell his family. Lucy didn't have
any relatives who she really talked to, at least none he knew about.
Only her mom, who knew. "Yeah. Her name's Lucy Knight."
"Hmm, name sounds familiar."
"Yeah, she works at the hospital."
"Oh," Katherine replied. She smiled. "That
must be it. Have you been
going out long?"
"A few months," he replied. He didn't know in
any instance that 'a few'
meant 'ten' except for here.
"That's nice. I'm happy for you," she said,
pulling into the restaurant
parking lot. She had picked a nice, small Italian restaurant. She parked
the car and they walked inside. Carter said he had to go use the restroom
while Katherine got a table. She asked for a table in the corner so they
wouldn't be in the middle of all the people. Just when she was sitting
down, Carter reappeared.
"So," he said, sitting down. "Now will you tell me why I'm here?"
"Let's order first. I'll tell you right after
that," she added, seeing the
look on his face.
They looked at the menu and ordered when the waiter came. Katherine could
see that Carter was getting impatient, so she started to explain. "I guess I
should just start at the beginning, huh? John, before you were born your father . . .
your father and I fought a lot. Barbara was just three and getting into
everything and your father always wanted me to go on his business trips
with him. I didn't want to leave your sister with your grandparents all of the
time, so I refused a lot. One night, your father was going to France and
almost ordered me to go with him.
Well, I said no, partially because I didn't want to go and partially because
he ordered me to. So, he left in a huff and said something stupid that he
didn't mean about how our marriage wasn't working or something. I don't
really remember. I got all mad and called up our lawyer at the time. Have
you ever heard your father mention Andy Bradstreet?"
"Yeah, whenever something would go wrong with work,
he would say, 'If Andy
were here, he'd fix it, --'"
"'-- too bad he had to leave.' Second nature to him, right? So Andy came
over to the house and we talked about a few things. In the heat of the
moment, I decided that I wanted a divorce. Obviously, it didn't go through.
Anyway, that wasn't the only mistake I made in the heat of the moment."
Carter still couldn't figure this out. "Mom, what are you talking about?"
"I, um, cheated on your father."
Carter looked at her, astonished. Why was she telling this
to him? "Mom,
why are you telling me?"
"Well, because it concerns you too."
Carter stared at her for a moment. "Mom? Are you --
are you saying what I
think you're saying?"
"Ah. What I'm saying is -- Roland Carter isn't your
father." She gave
herself a second to compose herself before continuing. "Your father never
was good at math, so he never found out," she said with a small laugh.
"You're sure?" Carter asked almost inaudibly.
"Yeah. The doctor said you were conceived on that day, give or take a few.
But your father was gone for a week after that and had
just returned from a
five day trip to New York. I'm -- I'm sorry, John."
"Who knows?"
"Just you, me, and Andy."
"Dad doesn't know?"
"No." Katherine never had the heart to tell
Roland earlier, and if she told
him now, she knew that in the heat of the moment, he would probably disown
Carter. When he came to his senses, she knew Carter wouldn't hear any of
it. She cleared her throat. "I'd like to keep it that way, if you don't mind.
"If it's okay with you, I'd like to keep it pretty much between us."
Carter didn't answer. The waiter brought their food and
they began to eat.
Finally Carter said, "Why are you telling me this?"
Katherine swallowed a bite of her salad. "When I was
in New York on
business, I ran into Andy's daughter. She told me that he was in the
hospital out in San Francisco. End stage leukemia. So, I went out to see
him. Finally told him about you. He never knew until a few days ago. He
asked if he could see you. I told him that you didn't know. He said he
understood. So, I came here to try to talk to you. You don't have to go, I
just thought it was worth a shot. You don't have to give me a definite
answer now," she said. Although, she was pretty sure he would. And it
would be negative. She pondered on the thought for a moment before returning to
her dinner.
Carter was also pondering his own thoughts. "I'll
think about it, okay Mom?
But no guarantees."
She smiled at him. "Thanks."
"Oh yeah, also I'm telling one person. I'm telling Lucy."
Katherine smiled again. "Okay, on one condition. You
let me take you two
out for dinner tomorrow night."
Carter thought for a moment. "Yeah, we're both off
tomorrow. But Lucy
will insist on cooking. She's a wonderful cook."
"Okay, if you insist." She smiled at him and returned to her lunch.
"Lucy, you home?" Carter called out as he walked in the door.
"Yep, right here," she called from the kitchen.
She walked over to the
door to greet him. "Carter, you're all wet!"
"Yeah, it's raining out," he said, taking off his coat.
"Did you walk home?" Lucy asked, walking to the
bathroom to hang his coat
up to dry.
"Yeah, I wanted to think about some stuff."
"Oh," Lucy said, not wanting to pry. "So,
how was dinner with your mom?"
she asked, changing the subject.
"You know when I said my birthday was the worst day
of my life? I changed
my mind."
"Oh, come on, it couldn't be that bad!" she
said. His look convinced her
otherwise. "Go change into some dry clothes. I'll make you a drink and you
can tell me all about it."
Carter changed into boxers and a T-shirt and went back to
sit down on the
couch. Lucy handed him a drink. He gave her a questioning look to which
she responded "Dewar's." He nodded in approval and took a sip.
"Oh yeah, you're not on tomorrow are you?"
"No. Why?"
"My mom wanted to take us out. I told her you'd much
rather cook us
something here."
"That is correct! Hmm, what should I make?" she
asked. Remembering
Carter's bad day, she said, "It's not important, we can figure it out later. So,
tell me about dinner."
"Well, to make a long story short, my mom had an
affair with our family
lawyer before I was born and I am a product of that affair. To add to the
chaos of my life, turns out he's living in San Francisco and dying of
leukemia. My mom wants me to visit him. He wants to see me. You're the
only one who knows besides the three of us," he said. Seeing Lucy's face,
he said, "I told you so."
"Wow, and I thought my day was bad. Come here,"
she said, reaching across
the couch to hug and console him.
"I mean," Carter started to say, "it's so
ironic. Everyone calls me Carter
and that's not even who I am."
"Carter. Your mother's still a Carter --"
"-- by marriage --"
"-- nevertheless, still a Carter. Your birth
certificate says "John Carter III,"
therefore, that's who you are. "John Carter" is what you've grown to know.
It's the same with your father. You've grown to know and love him, does
that mean he's any less of a dad to you?"
"Don't get me started on my dad. We've always hated
each other and now I
have a perfectly valid reason for it."
"Carter, deep down you know you love your father and
you know he
loves you too. Sure, you guys fight a lot, but all kids fight with their parents."
Lucy could see that that was true by the look in his eyes
and she decided
to change the subject. "So, are you going to go see him?"
"I don't know. I just don't want to not go and regret
it for the rest of my
life. I also don't want to go out there and have him resent me."
"Carter, he asked for you. He's not going to resent
you. And yes, if you
don't go, you probably will forget it."
"I don't know if I can get work off."
"I'm sure you can. Everyone will understand. If you
don't want to tell,
tell them it's a family emergency. You won't be lying."
"I . . . I don't want to go alone," Carter said, looking up at Lucy.
"I'm sure that I can arrange to take some time off
too. If that's
what you would like."
"That would be great, thanks," Carter replied,
smiling at Lucy. He reached
over and gently pulled her face closer to his. "That's one of the reasons
why I love you, Luce."
"I love you too," she said.
